Rooted · Week 1 · Saturday Recap

Rooted

This week we sank roots into joy, which is not happiness but the power to endure.

Five Storms

We watched a woman stop gripping for control and discover that a lot of our fear is really a trust problem wearing a disguise.

A man who almost disappeared into isolation, until one friend refused to let him storm alone.

A man who stopped believing the cruel voice in his head and started talking back to it with the truth.

A woman who kept the line open to God through a long, grinding silence, and stayed on it anyway.

And a man who stood in the wreckage of everything he had built and chose to praise God anyway, though and yet.

We don’t choose the storm. We choose who we become.

What I Keep Landing On

Here is what I keep coming back to, as honestly as I can say it. I have four sons, ages thirteen to twenty-one, and I cannot storm-proof their lives. I have wanted to. But the culture is a storm, and hard seasons are coming for them whether I am ready or not. I do not get to choose the storms my boys will face. None of us gets to choose that for the people we love.

But I get to help decide something better than that. I get to help them grow roots now, in the ordinary, unremarkable days, deep enough to hold when the wind finally comes. And I get to show them, in the way I handle my own storms, that the goal was never to pass the test. It was to be purified by it, to come out more like Jesus and less like the storm.

He Already Won

Notice what Jesus does not promise. He does not promise a life with no storms. He says plainly, in the world you will have tribulation, count on it. What He promises is far better than a storm-free life. He promises to be with us inside the storm, and He promises that He has already overcome the very world that is throwing it at us.

That is what it means to be rooted. Not that the wind never blows, but that when it does, we hold, because our roots go down into the One who already won. Rooted things do not fear the wind.

Let your lifesong sing. The storm doesn’t get to decide who you become.

Rooted · Week 1 Complete · The series continues